Research matters to patients who live with medical conditions or undergo medical procedures. Various researchers around the world may measure different outcomes for similar research questions, which can make summarising the findings harder. An example relevant to ATOM …
When a patient undergoes surgery under general anaesthesia, their consciousness level will be decreased and they may stop breathing or their windpipe might not be open to allow for gas exchange, which is vitally important. For this reason, a clinician (most often an anaesthetist) will use an airway device, such as a breathing tube that sits in the windpipe or a soft mask that sits in the throat and helps the clinician breathe for the patient for the duration of surgery.
Studies looking at these devices or approaches often compare technical outcomes such as failure rates, time required, and success on the first attempt, but also look at patient-oriented outcomes such as sore throat, change in voice, or more serious complications that may occur. The reporting of these outcomes varies from study to study and from research group to research group.
It is therefore the aim of a core outcome set development process to bring to the table patients, clinicians, and researchers, and decide on which outcomes are the most essential to include in every study in the future. This is done by looking at the existing studies and performing interviews, followed by surveys and stakeholder meetings to decide the final core outcome set, usually comprising of a handful of crucial outcomes.
An engaging summary of what core outcome sets are can be seen in this video about a patient living with asthma, produced by the COMET Initiative:
We encourage you to read more about core outcome sets on the COMET website.